"You!" someone calls out.
"Okay," says Tori. "Anyone else?"
Marlene cups her hands around her mouth and calls out, "Tris!"
My heart pounds. But to my surprise, no one mutters in dissent and no one laughs. Instead, a few people nod, just like they did when Tori's name was mentioned. I scan the crowd and find Christina. She stands with her arms crossed, and does not seem to react at all to my nomination.
I wonder how I seem to them. They must see someone I don't see. Someone capable and strong. Someone I can't be; someone I can be.
Tori acknowledges Marlene with a nod and scans the crowd for another recommendation.
"Harrison," someone says. I don't know who Harrison is until someone slaps a middle-aged man with a blond ponytail on the shoulder, and he grins. I recognize him-he's the Dauntless man who called me "girl" when Zeke and Tori came back from Erudite headquarters.
The Dauntless are quiet for a moment.
"I'm going to nominate Four," says Tori.
Apart from a few angry murmurs in the back of the room, no one disagrees. No one is calling him a coward anymore, not after he beat up Marcus in the cafeteria. I wonder how they would react if they knew how calculated that move was.
Now he could get exactly what he intended to get. Unless I stand in his way.
"We only need three leaders," Tori says. "We'll have to vote."
They would never have considered me if I had not stopped the attack simulation. And maybe they wouldn't have considered me if I hadn't stabbed Eric by those elevators, or put myself under that bridge. The more reckless I get, the more popular I am with the Dauntless.
Tobias looks at me. I can't be popular with the Dauntless, because Tobias is right-I'm not Dauntless; I'm Divergent. I am whatever I choose to be. And I can't choose to be this. I have to stay separate from them.
"No," I say. I clear my throat and say it louder. "No, you don't have to vote. I refuse my nomination."
Tori raises her eyebrows at me. "Are you sure, Tris?"
"Yes," I say. "I don't want it. I'm sure."
And then, without argument and without ceremony, Tobias is elected to be a leader of Dauntless. And I am not.
NOT TEN SECONDS after we choose our new leaders, something rings-one long pulse, two short ones. I move toward the sound, my right ear toward the wall, and find a speaker suspended from the ceiling. There is another one across the room.
Then Jack Kang's voice speaks all around us.
"Attention all occupants of Candor headquarters. A few hours ago I met with a representative of Jeanine Matthews. He reminded me that we Candor are in a weak position, dependent on Erudite for our survival, and told me that if I intend to keep my faction free, I will have to meet a few demands."
I stare up at the speaker, stunned. I shouldn't be surprised that the leader of Candor is this forthright, but I wasn't expecting a public announcement.
"In order to comply with these demands, I ask that everyone make their way to the Gathering Place to report whether you have an implant or not," he says. "The Erudite have also ordered all Divergent to be turned over to Erudite. I do not know for what purpose."
He sounds listless. Defeated. Well, he is defeated, I think. Because he was too weak to fight back.
One thing Dauntless knows that Candor does not is how to fight even when fighting seems useless.
Sometimes I feel like I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always something to learn, always something that is important to understand.
Jack Kang's announcement ends with the same three rings it started with. The Dauntless rush through the room, throwing their things into bags. A few young Dauntless men cut the sheet away from the door, screaming something about Eric. Someone's elbow presses me to a wall, and I just stand and watch the pandemonium intensify.
On the other hand, one thing Candor knows that Dauntless does not is how not to get carried away.
The Dauntless stand in a semicircle around the interrogation chair, where Eric now sits. He looks more dead than alive. He is slumped in the chair, sweat shining on his pale forehead. He stares at Tobias with his head tilted down, so his eyelashes blend into his eyebrows. I try to keep my eyes on him, but his smile-how the piercings pull wide when his lips spread-is almost too awful to take.
"Would you like me to tell you your crimes?" says Tori. "Or would you like to list them yourself?"
Rain sprays against the side of the building and streams down the walls. We stand in the interrogation room, on the top floor of the Merciless Mart. The afternoon storm is louder here. Every crack of thunder and flash of lightning makes the back of my neck prickle, as if electricity is dancing over my skin.